I first heard it from my mother when I was
20, “The English have not had a good composer since Henry Purcell, 1659(?)- 1695."
In the early 70s I bought as many Angel
recordings of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams as I could find in Mexico City. My favourite
was his Symphony Number 2, A London Symphony. I could imagine the bustling
Piccadilly traffic when I listened to it. I also enjoyed his seventh, Sinfonia
Antartica. I would freeze as I listened to it. The Angel recording notes
mentioned that one of the “instruments” was a wind machine!
It wasn’t until the middle 80s that I met
cameraman Osmond Borradaile in West
Vancouver who had worked (and travelled to the
Antarctic) on the Charles Frend 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic in which the
music featured Vaughan Williams’s music.
Like many of us who had decent stereo
systems in those early 70s another record to listen and to enjoy was Gustav Holst’s
The Planets in what was then the definitive recording by Sir Adrian Boult and
the New Philharmonia Orchestra.
It was my Yorkshire-born friend Andrew
Taylor who through his father Colin told me about another English composer I
knew nothing about, Michael Tippett. At the time records by Benjamin Britten
were hard to find in Mexico City. And in the middle 80s I could hear the music of Elgar while riding an English train.
My mother, in retrospect can be forgiven by
her damning statement on British composers because in her time there were few
available recordings.
My first real introduction to Benjamin
Britten was a 1995 Vancouver Opera production of Peter Grimes with Ben Heppner.
I have also enjoyed Britten’s Billy Budd in CDs.
Now I can affirm that my knowledge of
Benjamin Britten has been enhanced thanks to the Microcosmos String Quartet and a
lovely soprano, Alexandra Hill. This knowledge would make my friend, the very
English David Lemon smile. After all it was some yars ago that I repeated my mother's statement to him and he frowned.
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| Alexandra Hill - Alex W-H |
The Microcosmos String Quartet is made up
of Marc Destrubé and Andrea
Siradze on violins, Tawnya Popoff on viola and Rebecca Wenham on cello. This
wonderful Vancouver-based quartet has decided to play the music that they feel
passionate about which paradoxically gets little notice these days. They are particularly
interested in performing the challenging (for the performers and perhaps for
listeners, too!) the six quartets of Bela Bartok. They perform these pieces in
the intimacy of home concerts in which the venues are spread throughout the
Lower Mainland.
If you are lucky to be
on their e-mail list (and I am!) you get advance notice on these concerts which
because they are in homes have limited seating capacity. A reasonable concert
ticket usually includes fine drink and cakes which I have enjoyed in very close
proximity to the quartet.
To sweeten the
program, the quartet has been celebrating Benjamin Britten’s birth this year by
also performing his three quartets.
On Wednesday night,
the Microcosmos String Quartet exclusively played Britten’s second and third quartet
in a very interesting home in West Hastings
that had acoustics so good that I was almost blasted from my front row seat.
It was interesting to
notice the difference in complexity (even this rank musical amateur could
discern it) between two quartets separated by 30 years. That Number 3 Quartet
had a special significance for me because it reminded me of my friend (he died
four years ago) architect Abraham Rogatnick who had a particular love for Venice. The last movement
of Britten’s quartet is about his staying in the city on the year that he
ultimately died.
Through pre-concert
chats, courtesy of Destrubé I can tell you that Britten loved rice and tapioca
pudding and liked to take cold baths in the morning or to skinny dip on the
freezing British seaside. I can tell you that he directed some of his work here
in Vancouver for the CBC Vancouver Orchestra and
that he played the piano in a home in West
Vancouver where one of the Microcosmos Quartet’s
concerts was held.
From my friend soprano
Alexandra Hill at a concert last week, December 5 at the Silk Purse in West Vancouver I heard
for the first time Britten’s Cabaret Songs (1939). Because Britten was gay the
content of the lyrics by his friend and poet W. H. Auden were deemed
questionable by the society of the time so these songs were originally
performed by a woman. And of course, again in 2013, in West Vancouver by another woman!
These songs had, for
me the influence of George Gershwin and Kurt Weill. They had a real jazzy tone
to them and of course the lyrics were full of humor that was punctuated at a
point by Hill who, with a wooden whistle mimicked the train of the fourth song,
Calypso.
In both concerts I can
add that there is an additional delight, obvious to some that they are warm and
intimate. But there is more.
When you sit front row
at a Microcosmos String Quartet performance or sit near soprano Hill and pianist
Annabelle Paetsch the sound is not like an MP3 file or a surround sound kind of
thing. It does not sound tinny as the sound from my PC’s speakers or coldish
(as some assert) from a good CD. This is live music. Live music at close
proximity is directional.
That means that when
you look at, let’s say, Destrubé playing his violin on the left you can hear
the instrument. But my peripheral vision tells me and my ears confirm the exact
location of the sound emanating from Siradze’s violin, Popoff’s cello centre
and Wenham’s viola on my right.
This aural
directionality is a superb feeling and I feel lucky at the privilege of being
witness to it. And best of all I am feeling as passionate about Britten as the Microcosmos String Quartet and Alexandra Hill. Some might say that the music of the 20th century is not always accessible. When you see it performed and hear it performed in real time, accessibility is instant.